American Politics Thread VI: Can't We All Just Get Along?

[Greater Cesnica]

Old thread can be found here.
Well, this is it. The sixth iteration of the American Politics Thread. Here's hoping we have even more civil, and completely rational debate here!

So, I have decided to focus the poll and title of this thread on collaboration. Specifically, the question of whether collaborating with political opponents is possible. What do I think personally? I'll collaborate with anyone who seeks to end the statist and coercive socioeconomic paradigm we reside in. To fight the oppression of the state and the corporate oligarchy. In that regard, if someone who disagrees with me politically on certain issues but otherwise wants the same end goal wishes to fight alongside me, so be it. However, I do believe that someone who fundamentally wants the same goal as I do is no political opponent of mine. In that sense, I believe that collaboration with political opponents is no longer feasible.

We know the drill- follow the rules, stay sane, and have fun debating!

[Kowani]

the answer to the thread title is no

[Exalted Inquellian State]

*Mongolian throat Singing 5: The Struggle to Survive*

[The Temple of the Computer]

viewtopic.php?f=20&t=501959 The last thread.

Welcome Back Republicans and Democrats, Libertarians and Greens, Kowani and GMS, to Thread that contains almost all american politics.

You already know the drill already, with over 45% of the american population already fully vaccinated, without any further Adieu, Let us begin this newest edition finally.

[Washington Resistance Army]

the answer to the thread title is no

So much this lol

[The Temple of the Computer]

Fuck, I was too slow, but anyway I love that new thread smell.

[Esthe]

It feels like we created the last thread yesterday.

[Greater Cesnica]

Poll up!

[Torisakia]

Collaborating with political opponents is like putting a lion and a rooster in the same pen and expecting them be friends.

[Andsed]

Bipartisanship is pretty much a joke now. The world is dying, I really have no interest in cooperating for half assed measures.

[Greater Cesnica]

And I've put my personal take in the OP as well.

[Sundiata]

Ok, isn't Joe Manchin just doing the same thing as Joe Lieberman under the Obama administration? Preventing a public option to appease his campaign donors?

[Kowani]

Millioniare attempts to purchase justice in New York

Tali Farhadian Weinstein announced her candidacy for Manhattan district attorney in July 2020, joining a crowded field of candidates for the June 22 primary. At least eight other contenders have jockeyed for attention since last summer. And all of them, to varying degrees, have sought to position themselves as progressive or reform-minded alternatives to a stilted status quo. (Cyrus Vance, who has served as Manhattan DA since 2010, is not seeking reelection.)

Some candidates wear their progressive label more credibly than others. Janos Marton, a prominent advocate of closing the Rikers Island jail complex, announced his campaign with a plan to slash Manhattan’s jail population by 80 percent. Tahanie Aboushi, endorsed by the Working Families Party and Bernie Sanders, pledged to introduce a policy of non- or delayed prosecution for many misdemeanors and to provide alternative-to-incarceration programs in all cases, “no exceptions.” Eliza Orlins, a longtime public defender, has consistently led the race in small-dollar donations while campaigning on what she describes as a “decarceral vision” for the DA’s office.

The presence of Aboushi, Marton, and Orlins in the race established a principled (and competitive) progressive pole against which more moderate candidates were forced to pitch their own positions — including former federal prosecutor Alvin Bragg, whom Marton endorsed after dropping out of the race in April. Even more significantly, Aboushi and Orlins demonstrated early on that a bold anti-incarceration agenda could be electorally viable in Manhattan by amassing endorsements, small donors, and volunteers.


As recently as April, an optimistic observer could be forgiven for thinking that the “progressive prosecutor” movement — embodied by figures like Philadelphia’s Larry Krasner and San Francisco’s Chesa Boudin — was on the cusp of claiming Manhattan. Two years after the razor-thin defeat of Tiffany Cabán’s campaign for Queens DA, the race represented another referendum on New York City’s expansive law-and-order infrastructure — and a rare opportunity for residents to vote for a reduction in the city’s capacity to send people to jail.

But elites had other plans. With breathtaking speed, Tali Farhadian Weinstein was elevated from minor player to presumed front-runner thanks to a wave of big-dollar donations. In mid-April, Gothamist reported that Farhadian Weinstein, a former federal prosecutor and director of an underperforming conviction integrity unit in Brooklyn, had out-fundraised her nearest opponent (Bragg) by more than two to one. “Wall Street Has Chosen Its Candidate,” read Gothamist’s headline.

While Farhadian Weinstein, like so many others in the race, rushes to call herself a progressive and a reformer, her platform reveals she is well to the right of nearly every other candidate on nearly every important issue — from sentencing to policing to felony murder.

“Tali is a favorite among financial services and other members of the business community who know her both socially and professionally,” one private sector lobbyist told Gothamist. The lobbyist went on to say that “the business community has generally thought that Cy Vance has done a good job at reconciling quality of life and criminal justice issues.” Farhadian Weinstein’s meaningless campaign slogan, “Real reform is about results,” makes sense when you realize that, for her wealthy donors, the candidate represents what the lobbyist called “continuity” and “a moderate approach.”

At the time, other candidates were unruffled by Farhadian Weinstein’s deep pockets — Aboushi and Orlins emphasized that their campaigns were driven by small donors, while Bragg and others questioned Farhadian Weinstein’s ability to credibly investigate and prosecute financial crime.

But in the weeks since, Farhadian Weinstein has taken the spending offensive to new heights. What had previously been a scandalous, if predictable, imbalance of campaign resources has become what attorney David Menschel calls “the most outrageous effort to flat-out purchase a district attorney position in America ever.”

Farhadian Weinstein donated $8.3 million of her own money to her campaign, boosting her fundraising total to about $10 million more than any other candidate in the race. “It’s an enormous amount of money to spend on a local DA race and it [seems like she’s] trying to buy justice,” the director of Common Cause New York, a watchdog organization, told Gothamist.

Farhadian Weinstein outspent her opponents seven to one between May 17 and June 7. During that time, the campaign shelled out roughly $6.5 million to pay for mailers, TV ads, and digital outreach.

This digital outreach included an online “push poll” that purported to be nonpartisan while misrepresenting rival candidate Alvin Bragg’s record and campaign platform. In a televised debate, another DA candidate, city assembly member Dan Quart, called Farhadian Weinstein’s attack on Bragg “disgraceful.”

The next day, the Farhadian Weinstein campaign used portions of a $5 million ad buy to circulate images of Quart and Bragg together under the headline “Do you want a District Attorney Who Protects Domestic Abusers?” (Quart and Bragg, along with Aboushi and Orlins, indicated in a candidates’ survey that they would not pursue domestic charges in cases where neither the accused nor the accuser wants to proceed.)

Farhadian Weinstein, who owns a $25.5 million Fifth Avenue apartment and a $13 million summerhouse in the Hamptons, has characterized comments about her affluence as “misogyny.” But it is clear her immense wealth is relevant to her newfound viability as a DA candidate. And as her rivals have pointed out, it also raises significant questions about what kind of DA she’d be in office.

The source of much of Farhadin Weinstein’s personal wealth is her marriage to Boaz Weinstein, the founder and manager of the hedge fund Saba Capital Management. ProPublica recently revealed that the couple declared an annual income as high as $107 million in the last ten years, although they paid no federal income tax in 2017, 2015, or 2013. And Gothamist uncovered that among her donors are a number of finance and real estate heavyweights.

As Ross Barkan wrote in Jacobin last month, “The problem with Farhadian Weinstein raising so much from Wall Street is that the Manhattan DA is the preeminent investigator, along with the US Attorney for the Southern District of New York, of white-collar crime in America. Tax evasion, money laundering, and real estate cases of national and global import all fall under the purview of the Manhattan office.”

A key criticism sitting DA Cyrus Vance faced throughout his tenure was that he was insufficiently aggressive in pursuing financial and other corporate crimes. Beyond her hollow slogan, Farhadian Weinstein has given voters no reason to believe she would be any different.

There are no term limits for DAs in New York, and the Manhattan office is especially famous for the longevity of its chief prosecutors. Vance served just three terms. But his predecessors, Robert Morganthau and Frank Hogan, each held office for more than thirty years. In nearly a century, then, the most powerful law enforcement position in one of the most significant jurisdictions in the country has been occupied by only three men.

Manhattan voters have a choice to make on Tuesday — and they can only make one. (Because district attorney is a state position, not a municipal one, ranked-choice voting won’t apply in this race.)

[Exalted Inquellian State]

The Anti-Thread.

[The Temple of the Computer]

The Anti-Thread.

To be fair, I was too slow to link my new thread in the old thread, bu this thread is older by two minutes at least.

[Heloin]

Collaborating with political opponents is like putting a lion and a rooster in the same pen and expecting them be friends.

The battle for the ages.

[Senkaku]

Millioniare attempts to purchase justice in New York

1. I supplicate and beseech you to make this the thread where you start spoilering full-text article pastes

2. Global warming literally cannot sink Manhattan soon enough

[Greater Cesnica]

From the prior iteration:

Anarcho-bullshit like this makes genuine anti-authoritarianism look silly, you know.

The state by its intrinsic nature espouses coercion on some level. The police are fundamentally the hounds of tyrants.

[Borderlands of Rojava]

No we can't get along and my message to any fan of the former president is simple. I have no intention nor desire to do you harm, but we are not friends and we can't be cool if you like the pathological liar we last had in office. I would appreciate if any Trump supporters just stay away from me. I'm not trying to understand any longer why someone would back a man who talked about murdering children or allowed people to die from covid.

[Sincluda]

That last thread filled fast.

[Greater Cesnica]

No we can't get along and my message to any fan of the former president is simple. I have no intention nor desire to do you harm, but we are not friends and we can't be cool if you like the pathological liar we last had in office. I would appreciate if any Trump supporters just stay away from me. I'm not trying to understand any longer why someone would back a man who talked about murdering children or allowed people to die from covid.

Roj, one can at least try to de-Trumpify them. Like I have before.

[Kowani]

Millioniare attempts to purchase justice in New York

1. I supplicate and beseech you to make this the thread where you start spoilering full-text article pastes

2. Global warming literally cannot sink Manhattan soon enough

sure, why not

[Senkaku]

No we can't get along and my message to any fan of the former president is simple. I have no intention nor desire to do you harm, but we are not friends and we can't be cool if you like the pathological liar we last had in office. I would appreciate if any Trump supporters just stay away from me. I'm not trying to understand any longer why someone would back a man who talked about murdering children or allowed people to die from covid.

Roj, one can at least try to de-Trumpify them. Like I have before.

is “de-Trumpification” a plata thing or a plomo thing? Because I’m pretty sure just reasoned conversation over a beer isn’t gonna cut it

[Borderlands of Rojava]

Prog dems: Americans need publicHealthcare. We can't have people forgoing treatment because they'd have to pay out of pocket.

House GOP: Liberals, you say you just want to improve society and yet vuvezla communism antifa vote was rigged.

The Joe Chiefs of Staff (Joe Biden and Joe Manchin): "We just want to get everyone to compromise."

[Torisakia]

No we can't get along and my message to any fan of the former president is simple. I have no intention nor desire to do you harm, but we are not friends and we can't be cool if you like the pathological liar we last had in office. I would appreciate if any Trump supporters just stay away from me. I'm not trying to understand any longer why someone would back a man who talked about murdering children or allowed people to die from covid.

Roj, one can at least try to de-Trumpify them. Like I have before.

Sounds like that has about the same rate of success as a fish does at climbing a tree.